The Free Stack Guide — run your SaaS for $0/mo
The short answer
You can run a production SaaS for $0/month using free tiers from Neon, Vercel, Resend, and Supabase. A developer shared on Reddit that they crossed $13k/month in revenue with a tooling bill near zero — their exact stack is documented in this guide.
The free stack
| Service | Free Tier | Limit |
|---|---|---|
| Neon Postgres | 0.5 GB, 100 compute hrs | Outgrows at ~5k MAU |
| Vercel Hobby | 100 GB bandwidth, 600 build min | Outgrows at ~10k MAU |
| Fly.io | Free allowances for backend | 3 shared VMs |
| Resend | 3k emails/month | Outgrows at ~500 users |
| Mixpanel (Startup) | Free for qualifying startups | Time-limited |
| Supabase | 500 MB DB, 50k MAU auth | 2 projects free |
When each tier breaks
0–100 users: Everything free
Your tooling bill is literally $0. The only cost is your domain (~$10/year).
100–1,000 users: Some upgrades
- Email: Resend $20/mo (50k emails)
- Database: Neon $25/mo (10 GB, 500 compute hrs)
- Total: $45/mo
1,000–10,000 users: Full stack
- Hosting: Vercel Pro $20/mo
- Database: Neon Scale $25/mo
- Email: Resend $20/mo
- Analytics: Plausible $9/mo
- Auth: Supabase Pro $25/mo
- Total: ~$99/mo — still under the $100/mo target
The key insight
Revenue should outgrow your tooling costs. By the time your free tiers break, your revenue should be covering them comfortably. If your costs are growing faster than your revenue, the problem isn't your tooling — it's your pricing or your market.
About the author
Muhammad Akbar is a full-stack developer and the founder of CheapStack. He builds affordable developer tools and writes about bootstrapping products on realistic budgets. All pricing data in this guide was verified from public pricing pages and personal usage in July 2026.